Bring It On - Kira Sinclair Page 0,35
out over here to dry.” Reaching back into the pack again, he pulled out a T-shirt and handed it to her. Their fingers brushed, and the now-familiar sizzle of need flashed up her arm. Colt jerked his hand away.
And she mourned for the sense of closeness they’d shared a few minutes before.
“We also had blood tests for the marriage license, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Fire caught, stuttered and then flared between them. Colt pulled on a pair of nylon gym shorts that must have also come from the pack. Across the flames, his eyes flashed. Something quick, hard and bright, but before Lena could figure out what it was it was gone.
“It never crossed my mind, Lena. I know you better than that.”
“Maybe, but Wyn was certainly promiscuous enough for all of us.”
“Something tells me that sex wasn’t on your agenda for the past few months.”
What the heck was that supposed to mean? “How the hell do you know that?”
He stepped closer, the red-orange glow of flames washing across his bare chest. His voice took on an intimate timbre. “Let’s just say, you don’t respond like a woman who’s been well-satisfied.”
For perverse reasons she didn’t understand even as she said it, she countered, “Wyn is a great lover, thank you very much.”
Colt’s lips twitched, not with humor but something far darker. “I’m sure your cousin would agree.”
She drew in a breath, as if the barb had actually connected with her chest.
“What about you? How many lovers have you had in the last year? Ten? Twenty?”
“I like sex.”
“You may like it—and I’ll be the first to admit you’re pretty damn good at it—but that doesn’t make you a god among men. What it makes you is pathetic and lonely. When’s the last time you had a real relationship, Colt? Not some one-night stand but something meaningful? Something built on a level beyond the physical?”
Colt’s mouth thinned and he took another menacing step toward her. Instead of taking the hint and backing away, she moved closer, going toe-to-toe.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The hell I don’t. I watched you self-destruct after you lost your parents. And when that didn’t cure the pain, you shut everyone out of your life.”
“You’re still here.”
She scoffed. “Please. I get random phone calls. A long weekend here and there. That’s not a relationship, that’s convenience.”
“That’s my job!” he hollered, his voice rising with frustration that matched her own.
How had they gone so quickly from total bliss to this?
“A convenient excuse, Colt. You immersed yourself in your work, using it as a barrier to distance you from everyone and everything that matters. You insulated yourself in the hopes that it would keep you from being hurt.”
She saw pain flash across Colt’s face and immediately regretted her words. They were true, but that didn’t give her the right to throw them at him like expletives.
Reaching for him, she tried to apologize. “Colt, I’m sorry.” He shook her off.
Closing the conversation completely, Colt said, “We’d better get some sleep while we can.”
Spreading the emergency blanket out on the cave floor, he lay down, gesturing for her to join him. She was surprised when he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her tight against his chest.
Tension still clung to his muscles; she could feel the hard coil of them pressing into her back. But he was touching her. At the moment she’d take what she could get.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Lena tried to will her body and mind to sleep, but it didn’t help. After a while, she thought he must have dozed off. Until he whispered, “I was…”
“Worried.”
“Scared.”
Lena realized that sometime while they’d lain there, wrapped together, the tension had left his body. He’d relaxed behind her, his voice sounding drowsy and thick.
“Not sure I’m ready for that responsibility. Tiny little thing dependent on you for everything. Too fragile.” The steel band of his arms pressed against her lungs. She didn’t think he knew what he was doing. “Bad enough you almost got hurt.”
She wanted to argue with him, to protest that she’d come nowhere close to getting hurt. But she realized it wouldn’t do any good. Not just because he wouldn’t have listened, but also because he was already asleep.
“OH, THANK GAWD,” greeted them when they exited the jungle the next morning. Waking at dawn hadn’t been difficult since the hard stone floor hadn’t made a very comfortable bed.
Georgie, tears glistening in her eyes, broke through a group of people who’d gathered at the head